(Finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Prize for Debut Fiction) In St. Petersburg, Russia, world chess champion Aleksandr Bezetov begins a quixotic presidential campaign against Vladimir Putin, knowing he is risking his life in the processóbut a deeper conviction propels him forward, in this novel by Jennifer Dubois. Meanwhile in Cambridge, Massachusetts, 30-year-old English lecturer Irina Ellison suspects she has inherited Huntingtonís diseaseóthe same illness that ended her fatherís life. When Irina finds an old, photocopied letter in which her father had asked the young Aleksandr Bezetov, "How does one proceed in a lost cause?" she decides to leave everything behind, traveling to Russia to find Bezetov and get an answer for her father, and for herself.

"Hilarious and heartbreaking and a triumph of the imagination. Jennifer duBois is too young to be this talented. I wish I were her."óGary Shteyngart